The  Jewish  Woman 
In  America 


BY 


LEON  HUHNER,  A.M.,  LL.B. 


Reprinted  from  The^  American  Hebrew 

1918 


The  Jewish  Woman 
In  America 


BY 


LEON  HUHNER,  A.M.,  LL.B. 


Reprinted  from  The  American  Hebrew 

1918 


The  Jewish  Woman 
in  America* 

By  LEON  HUHNER 

The  story  of  the  Jew  on  the  American 
continent  begins  with  the  discovery  itself, 
for  there  were  two  Jews  who  accompanied 
Columbus  on  his  memorable  voyage.  The 
edict  of  expulsion  from  Spain  and  the 
discovery  of  America  occurred  in  the  same 
year,  and  naturally  thousands  of  secret 
Jews  in  Spain  and  Portugal  took  advantage 
of  the  discovery  by  going  to  the  New  World, 
in  the  years  of  oppression  that  followed. 
Here  they  hoped  to  be  able  to  resume  the 
faith  taught  them  by  their  mothers,  yet 
their  plans  were  baffled  by  the  ever  watch- 
ful eye  of  the  Inquisition  which  soon  had 
its  agents  in  America  as  well,  and  estab- 
lished branches  of  its  dread  tribunal  in 
Mexico,  in  Chili  and  Peru. 

Much  indeed  has  been  written  about  the 
fortitude  of  the  men  who  sacrificed  property, 
and  even  life  itself,  for  the  faith  of  their 
fathers,  yet  some  of  the  most  dramatic  cases 
of  self-sacrifice  and  devotion  on  American 
soil,  were  cases  of  Jewish  women  who  suf- 
fered in  the  Spanish  and  Portuguese  colo- 
nies. 

Long  before  the  seventeenth  century,  the 
Mexican  annals  furnish  the  names  of  nu- 
merous female  martyrs.  At  the  trial  of 
Jorge  de  Almeida,  in  1595,  a  number  of 
Jewish  women  are  mentioned,  several  being 
members  of  the  Caravajal  family,  and 
among  those  referred  to  in  the  session  of 
1600  were  Dona  Clara  Enriquez,  Constanga 
Rodriquez,  Anna  Lopez  and  many  others. 
Dona  Lenor  de  Andrada  was  convicted  of 
being  a  Jewess,  and  the  ancient  record  de- 
scribes another  Mexican  victim  as  a  strict 
observer  of  the  Mosaic  law  to  such  an  ex- 


*This  paper,  in  somewhat  condensed  form,  was 
published  some  years  ago  by  the  Council  of  Jewish 
Women  and  subsequently  appeared  in  translation 
both  in  France  and  Germany.  It  has  been  ex- 
panded by  the  author  and  brought  to  date  for  the 
present  publication. 


Stack 
Annex 


tent,  "as  to  fast  during  the  whole  week  and  ^ 

eat  only  once  every  third  day."     This  was  ^  ^ 

a     self-imposed     penance     quite     common  ~*7  &  /  f  £) 

among  Marranos  for  having  even  outward-  •   &           ( 

ly  abjured  their  faith. 

Nor  were  these  women  elderly  matrons 
whom  time  and  adversity  had  inclined 
toward  religion  ;  quite  a  few  were  in  the 
very  bloom  of  youth.  Anna  Xuares,  a  native 
of  Mexico,  for  instance,  being  condemned 
at  the  early  age  of  twenty-five,  after  having 
confessed  to  having  observed  the  fast  days 
and  ceremonial  laws  from  her  fourteenth 
year.  Another  victim,  Leonora  de  Carcerez, 
only  daughter  of  Sr.  Antonio  Diaz  de  Car- 
cerez, was  likewise  condemned  for  observing 
the  law  of  Moses,  and  went  in  the  auto-da-fe 
which  took  place  in  the  Plaza  Major  of 
the  City  of  Mexico,  on  March  5,  1601,  at  the 
early  age  of  fourteen. 

The  dreadful  tribunal  spared  neither  age 
nor  sex,  and  so  we  find  old  women,  like 
Dona  Catalina  Enriquez  of  Vera  Cruz,  con- 
demned as  Jewish  heretics,  at  the  age  of 
eighty.  She  died  in  her  cell  September  25, 
1644. 

At  the  trial  of  Gabriel  of  Grenada,  which 
took  place  in  the  City  of  Mexico  in  1642, 
no  less  than  thirty-four  Jewish  women  are 
mentioned;  several  of  these  are  described 
as  having  died  in  prison,  others  as  tortured 
by  the  Inquisition.  As  several  of  the  fam- 
ily names  subsequently  appear  in  the  his- 
tory of  our  thirteen  colonies,  it  may  not  be 
amiss  to  mention  a  few  of  the  names  of 
such  victims:  Dona  Blanca  Mendes  de 
Rivera,  Beatrice  Henriquez,  Clara  de  Sylva, 
Maria  Gomez,  Isabel  Nunez  and  others. 

There  is  sometimes  a  grim  humor 
in  these  American  Inquisition  records, 
for  it  appears  that  occasionally  the  victim 
had  died  pending  trial,  or  at  times  had  even 
been  dead  for  several  years  before  the  ac- 
cusation was  made.  In  such  cases,  the 
court  would  nevertheless  proceed  to  try  the 
case  with  all  solemnity,  hear  the  witnesses 
as  though  the  accused  were  alive,  and  finally 
give  judgment,  ordering  the  image  of  the 
accused  to  be  burned  in  public.  Thus,  for 


500784^ 


instance,  we  find  such  a  case  in  1659  en- 
titled, "Case  against  the  Memory  and  Fame 
of  Isabel  Texoso  of  New  Vera  Cruz." 

The  same  sad  story  can  be  retold  of  the 
Jewish  women  of  South  America.  Isabel 
Isles  was  a  victim  at  Cartagena  in  1712, 
while  in  Peru,  Dona  Maria  Anna  de  Castro 
had  the  melancholy  distinction  of  being  the 
last  victim  to  be  burnt  at  the  auto-da-fe  at 
Lima  in  1736.  Many  of  these  Jewish  vic- 
tims were  women  of  culture  and  refinement, 
a  prominent  instance  being  the  mother  of 
the  famous  Portuguese  poet,  Antonio  da 
Silva,  who  was  brought  from  Rio  de  Janeiro 
to  Lisbon,  and,  after  spending  years  in 
prison,  suffered  death  for  her  faith  in  1739. 
But  I  will  not  dwell  longer  on  that  long, 
sad  story  of  persecution  and  suffering.  Be- 
fore leaving  it,  however,  one  charge  against 
these  noble  martyrs  deserves  special  men- 
tion, because  it  occurs  so  frequently  in  those 
dark  annals,  an  accusation  which  we  might 
wish  could  be  made  more  generally  today, 
namely,  "that  they  taught  their  children  to 
observe  the  law  which  God  gave  unto 
Moses." 

Long  before  Jews  came  to  what  is  now 
the  United  States,  considerable  numbers 
of  them  had  settled  in  various  parts  of  the 
West  Indies,  Mexico,  Brazil,  and  the  South 
American  colonies.  When  Brazil  was  taken 
by  the  Dutch  early  in  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury, the  secret  Jews  residing  there  at  once 
threw  off  the  mask,  and  openly  avowed  their 
faith.  In  this  way  we  get  some  idea  how 
very  large  was  the  Jewish  population  in 
America  at  that  early  date.  Thus  we  find 
that  a  single  city,  Pernambuco  in  Brazil,  had 
a  Jewish  population  of  over  five  thousand  as 
early  as  1653.  This,  it  must  be  remembered, 
was  greater  than  was  the  entire  Jewish 
population  of  the  United  States  in  1820. 

But  Brazil  was  recaptured  by  the  Portu- 
guese in  1654,  and  the  Jews  naturally  had 
to  leave  the  country  at  once.  Thousands 
left,  some  for  Holland,  some  settling  in  the 
West  Indies  and  elsewhere,  while  one  un- 
fortunate vessel  was  captured  by  pirates,  its 
passengers  plundered  and  put  off  at  a  point 


on  the  Cuban  coast  called  Cape  St.  An- 
thony, where  they  were  finally  picked  up  by 
a  French  captain  who  brought  them  to  the 
Dutch  colony  of  New  Amsterdam,  as  New 
York  was  then  known. 

The  women  who  came  in  that  party  have 
left  no  record;  they  were  probably  simple, 
industrious  housewives  and  their  best  claim 
to  our  regard  is  that  they  managed  to  bring 
up  their  sons  and  daughters  amid  such  non- 
Jewish  surroundings,  as  devoted  supporters 
of  their  ancestral  faith.  Only  here  and  there 
does  a  name  appear  in  the  Dutch  records, 
the  most  frequent  being  that  of  Ricke 
Nunes,  who  came  in  1654. 

From  these  Dutch  records  we  learn  also 
that  the  Jewish  housewife  of  250  years 
ago,  had  her  troubles  with  domestics  as 
well.  Asser  Levy  Van  Swellem,  one  of  the 
most  prominent  Jews  who  arrived  from 
Brazil,  was  a  staunch  defender  of  his  rights 
and  those  of  his  people  against  Stuyvesant 
and  the  most  powerful  men  in  the  colony, 
and  therefore  figures  frequently  and  suc- 
cessfully in  the  court  records  of  New  Am- 
sterdam. One  of  his  lawsuits  was  against 
Balthazar  Bayart.  It  appears  that  Mrs.  Levy 
had  hired  Ancke  Jansen's  daughter  as  her 
maid,  but  that  somehow  Bayart's  wife  got 
her  before  her  time  had  expired.  Levy  ob- 
tained a  judgment  in  his  favor  directing 
the  maid  to  return  to  her  service. 

Those  early  Jewish  women  evinced  a 
laudable  interest  in  congregational  and 
communal  affairs.  To  this  day  the  Spanish 
and  Portuguese  Congregation  of  New  York 
shows  its  gratitude  to  several  women  who 
gave  substantial  aid  in  effecting  the  build- 
ing of  the  first  synagogue  erected  in  this 
city  in  1730,  by  the  recital  of  a  special  es- 
caba  to  their  momery.  In  this  manner  their 
names  have  been  preserved:  Abigail  Franks, 
Simha  de  Torres,  Rachel  Louiza,  Judith 
Pacheco,  Hannah  Michaels  and  Miriam 
Lopez  de  Fonseca. 

The  minutes  of  the  congregation  recently 
published,  show  however,  that  there  were 
other  women  who  contributed  besides  those 
mentioned.  Among  these  were  the  widow 
Rebecca  Ashers,  the  widow  Rachel  Naph- 


tali,  Bilah  Levy,  Ribka  De  Fonseca  and  Re- 
becca Sylvia  of  Barbados. 

There  is  scant  mention  of  women  in  the 
other  colonies,  except  in  the  case  of  Rhode 
Island  and  Georgia.  In  both  these,  how- 
ever, their  history  is  exceedingly  interest- 
ing. Many  of  the  women  mentioned  at 
Newport  and  at  Savannah  had  been  secret 
Jews  in  Spain  and  Portugal  and  fled  only 
when  it  became  absolutely  necessary  to  do 
so.  That  they  even  knew  aught  of  their 
faith  is  the  more  remarkable  when  we  re- 
flect that  they  had  been  brought  up  out- 
wardly as  Christians,  and  that  their  mothers 
and  grandmothers  for  generations  had  out- 
wardly been  adherents  of  the  Catholic 
Church. 

To  Newport  such  Jews  and  Jewesses  con- 
tinued to  come  directly  from  the  Iberian 
Peninsula  as  late  as  1767.  In  Georgia,  a 
number  of  these  secret  Jews  were  among 
the  earliest  settlers  of  the  colony  in  1733. 
Many  touching  customs  of  these  immigrants 
deserve  our  attention.  The  Marrano  chil- 
dren in  Spain  and  Portugal  were  baptized 
and  named  by  the  Church,  yet  secretly  they 
received  distinctly  Jewish  names  as  well. 
By  the  former  they  were  known  in  the 
community,  by  the  latter  in  the  closer  circle 
of  kindred.  Often  even  the  ancient  family 
name  was  thus  preserved.  To  illustrate, 
the  famous  Donna  Gracia  was  known  to 
the  world  as  Beatrice  de  Luna,  while  to  her 
kin  she  was  known  as  Gracia  Benveniste. 

Instances  of  this  double  naming  appear 
frequently  among  the  early  Jewish  settlers 
in  the  thirteen  colonies.  When  Aaron  Lopez, 
the  famous  merchant  of  Newport,  brought 
his  wife  and  daughter  from  Lisbon,  their 
names  were  Anna  and  Catharine  but  these 
were  immediately  changed  to  Abigail  and 
Sarah. 

Another  touching  custom  is  found  in  the 
devices  practiced  by  Jewish  women  for 
generations,  in  order  to  divert  the  sus- 
picions of  the  Inquisition.  They  were 
closely  watched  and  therefore  had  to  adopt 
devices  in  observing  ceremonies  or  in  re- 
citing their  Hebrew  prayers.  These  habits 


became  so  strong  that  the  women  never 
were  able  to  cast  them  off  even  after  years, 
of  residence  in  America.  To  illustrate,  Dr. 
Nunez,  one  of  the  earliest  settlers  in 
Georgia,  brought  his  wife  and  daughter 
with  him.  It  is  related  that  to  their  dying 
day,  those  ladies  were  unable  to  repeat  their 
Hebrew  prayers  without  the  assistance  of 
the  Catholic  rosary,  a  device  adopted  origi- 
nally to  give  the  appearance  of  Catholic  de- 
votion. 

Many  of  these  women  were  women  of 
high  social  standing  and  refinement.  Dr. 
Xunez,  for  instance,  had  been  the  Court 
physician  in  Portugal,  but  being  betrayed 
by  a  servant,  he  and  his  family  were  com- 
pelled to  flee  on  short  notice,  amid  cir- 
cumstances thrillingly  related  by  the  late 
Mordecai  M.  Noah. 

As  a  general  thing  these  Marrano  women 
possessed  many  accomplishments.  The 
American  Jewish  Historical  Society  pos- 
sesses a  bit  of  needlework  made  by  a  secret 
Jewess  during  the  Inquisition,  nearly  four 
hundred  years  ago,  and  which  was  one  of 
the  few  things  she  was  able  to  save  when 
making  her  escape.  It  was  subsequently 
used  for  ceremonial  purposes  in  connection 
with  admitting  children  into  the  covenant; 
the  last  time  it  was  so  used  being  in  the  case 
of  Mordecai  M.  Noah,  in  1786. 

Besides  these  Marranos,  there  were 
among  the  first  settlers  of  Georgia,  another 
and  distinct  group  constituting  the  earliest 
German  Jews  in  America.  To  this  group 
belongs  the  Sheftall  family.  These  German 
women  are  mentioned  by  the  Lutheran  min- 
ister, Bolzius,  who  came  to  Georgia  a  year 
or  two  after  the  colony  was  founded,  and 
he  records  the  kindness  and  hospitality  of 
these  German  Jewesses  to  the  Lutherans, 
who  had  themselves  just  fled  from  perse- 
cution. 

In  1740  the  British  government  passed 
an  act  for  the  naturalization  of  foreigners 
in  the  American  colonies,  and  it  is  re- 
markable that  so  large  a  number  of  Jewish 
women  availed  themselves  of  this  legisla- 
tion. In  Jamaica  no  less  than  forty  names 
appear,  several  of  them  doubtless  related  to 


many  of  our  old  American  families.  Among 
these  are  Esther  Pereira  Mendes,  Leah 
Cardoza  and  Esther  Pinto  Brandon. 

In  colonial  society  prior  to  the  Revolu- 
tion, several  fair  Jewish  women  took  a 
prominent  part,  and  not  a  few  were  num- 
bered among  the  belles  of  their  day.  Some 
of  these  unfortunately  became  lost  to  Juda- 
ism. To  this  group  belonged  several  ladies 
of  the  wealthy  and  influential  Franks  fam- 
ily. Abigail  Franks  married  Andrew  Ham- 
ilton of  Philadelphia.  Phila  Franks  in  1750 
married  General  Delancey,  and  her  New 
York  home  was  one  of  the  pretentious  man- 
sions of  the  day,  which  subsequently  became 
a  public  place  known  as  Fraunces  Tavern, 
the  very  building  in  which  George  Wash- 
ington delivered  his  Farewell  Address.  A 
daughter  of  Joseph  Simon  of  Lancaster 
married  Dr.  Nicholas  Schuyler,  subsequent- 
ly one  of  the  surgeons  in  the  Revolutionary 
War.  Sarah  Isaacs,  the  daughter  of  a 
patriot  soldier,  also  married  out,  her  son 
being  John  Howard  Payne,  the  composer 
of  "Home,  Sweet  Home." 

The  most  brilliant  woman  in  this  group 
was  Rebecca  Franks,  whose  career  has  been 
sketched  by  various  writers ;  among  others 
Mrs.  Ellet  and  Miss  Wharton,  and  she  is 
likewise  introduced  by  Dr.  Weir  Mitchell  in 
his  novel,  "Hugh  Wynne." 

Born  to  wealth,  gifted  with  a  ready  wit, 
and  rare  personal  beauty,  she  had  access  to 
the  most  exclusive  circle  of  colonial  so- 
ciety. Her  grandfather  had  been  the  Brit- 
ish king's  sole  agent  for  the  Northern 
Colonies,  while  her  father  was  the  king's 
agent  for  Pennsylvania.  Naturally  there- 
fore, the  family,  like  so  many  of  the  colo- 
nial aristocracy,  took  the  king's  side  in  the 
Revolutionary  struggle. 

Of  Rebecca  Franks,  Miss  Wharton  says : 

"She  was  a  reigning  belle  during  the 
British  occupation  of  Philadelphia,  when 
General  Howe  was  in  the  habit  of  tying 
his  horse  before  David  Franks'  house  and 
going  in  to  have  a  chat  with  the  ladies  and 
possibly  to  enjoy  a  laugh  at  some  of  Miss 
Rebecca's  spirited  sallies.  Although  the 
beautiful  Jewess  shared  the  honors  of  belle- 


dom  with  fair  Willings  and  Shippens,  no 
one  seems  to  have  disputed  her  title  to  be 
considered  the  wit  of  her  day  among  woman- 
kind." 

She  was  one  of  the  queens  of  beauty  at 
the   Meschianza,  a    splendid   fete  given   to 


LADY  JOHXSOX 
(Rebecca  Franks) 

General  Howe  before  leaving  Philadelphia 
in  1778,  and  which  had  been  arranged  by 
the  ill-fated  Major  Andre. 

Her  literary  efforts,  both  in  prose  and 
verse,  are  brilliant  and  vivacious,  and  it  is 
from  her  pen  that  we  have  perhaps  the  most 
interesting  picture  of  the  social  life  in  New 
York  during  the  Revolution. 

She  married  Colonel,  afterward  General, 
Sir  Henry  Johnson.  Many  distinguished 
Americans  in  later  years  visited  her  in 
England,  among  these  being  General  Win- 
field  Scott,  who  has  left  an  account  of  her 
in  his  autobiography.  Her  death  occurred 
in  1823. 

The    great    majority    of    Jews,    however, 


were  staunch  adherents  of  the  patriot 
cause  and  several  Jewish  women  figure  in 
Revolutionary  history.  In  his  history  of 
Leicester,  Massachusetts,  Emory  Washburn 
pays  a  fine  tribute  to  the  Jewish  men  and 
women  who  left  Newport  on  the  British 
occupation  and  settled  at  Leicester.  His 
work  gives  several  instances  of  the  devo- 
tion of  those  women  to  the  tenets  of  their 
faith. 

Among  the  patriot  women  of  the  South 
are  the  names  of  Mrs.  Judy  Minis  and  her 
daughter.  The  wife  of  a  Revolutionary  sol- 
dier, she  was  heart  and  soul  in  the  cause. 
A  strict  observer  of  Jewish  ritual,  she  pre- 
pared the  meals  for  Jewish  soldiers  taken 
prisoners  by  the  British  after  the  fall  of 
Savannah.  He  intense  patriotism  so  dis- 
turbed the  British  commander,  that  for  a 
time  he  ordered  both  women  to  remain  in 
their  house,  but  finally,  owing  to  their  con- 
stant communication  and  assistance  to  the 
patriots,  Mrs.  Minis  and  her  daughter  were 
ordered  to  leave  the  town.  They  according- 
ly went  to  Charleston,  of  which  place  the 
husband  was  one  of  the  patriotic  defenders. 

In  Westchester  County  we  meet  another 
patriotic  Jewess,  Esther  Etting  Hays,  the 
wife  of  David  Hays,  also  a  Revolutionary 
soldier.  When  Tarleton  with  a  party  of 
British  raided  the  village  of  Bedford  in 
1779,  Tory  neighbors  entered  the  house 
where  Mrs.  Hays  was  lying  upon  a  sick 
bed  with  a  new-born  infant.  They  demanded 
information,  which  she  was  supposed  to 
possess,  concerning  the  patriot  plans,  and, 
on  her  refusal  to  comply,  the  house  was  set 
afire,  and  mother  and  child  were  saved  only 
by  faithful  negro  servants,  who  conveyed 
them  to  a  shelter  in  the  woods. 

Among  the  noble  examples  of  Jewish 
womanhood  at  this  period  were  Mrs.  Moses 
Michael  Hays  of  Boston,  and  Mrs.  Reyna 
Touro,  who,  in  a  Puritan  community,  with 
hardly  any  Jewish  associations,  brought  up 
their  children  as  observant  Jews,  Judah 
Touro  and  his  brother  becoming  the  great 
communal  workers  of  the  next  generation. 

It  is  noteworthy  that  Jewish  children  in 


colonial  days  received  elementary  educa- 
tion, irrespective  of  sex.  There  were  then 
no  public  schools,  but  the  congregation 
generally  employed  some  teacher  who  taught 
both  boys  and  girls.  The  result  was  that 
Jewish  women  in  colonial  times  were  rarely 
illiterate,  and  we  even  find  a  Jewish  girl 
among  the  earliest  female  students  in  an 
American  college.  The  records  of  Franklin 
College,  founded  by  Benjamin  Franklin,  and 
now  known  as  Franklin  and  Marshall  Col- 
lege in  Pennsylvania,  show  that  among  its 
students  in  1787  was  Richea  Gratz,  a  daugh- 
ter of  Michael  Gratz,  who  had  been  one  of 
the  signers  of  the  Non-Importation  Agree- 
ment of  1765. 

The  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century 
finds  women  taking  a  more  active  part,  by 
their  organization  of  benevolent  and  chari- 
table institutions.  The  most  prominent 
name  at  the  period  is  that  of  the  noblest 
daughter  American  Judaism  has  produced, 
Rebecca  Gratz,  who  was  born  in  Philadel- 
phia in  1781.  Like  Rebecca  Franks,  she  too 
was  born  to  wealth  and  social  position; 
she  too  moved  in  the  most  exclusive  society 
and  possessed  like  her,  beauty,  grace  and 
culture.  She  too  might  doubtless  have  made 
a  match  as  brilliant,  as  distinguished  as  her 
namesake,  but  unlike  her,  she  was  a  devout 
Jewess.  Writers  have  hinted  that  it  was 
her  devotion  to  her  faith  that  was  the  sole 
cause  of  her  remaining  unmarried.  Her 
beauty,  refinement  and  wealth  of  noble  qual- 
ities, made  her  beloved  by  all  who  knew 
her,  so  that  we  may  well  look  upon  her 
as  the  ideal  American  lady  and  Jewish 
woman. 

Miss  Gratz  had  been  the  close  friend  of 
Matilda  Hoffman,  Washington  Irving' s  first 
and  only  love.  Her  charm  and  nobility  of 
character  so  deeply  impressed  the  great 
American  author,  and  so  enthusiastically 
did  he  describe  them  to  his  friend,  Sir 
Walter  Scott,  during  his  European  trip,  that 
the  latter  is  said  to  have  found  in  her  the 
character  he  so  beautifully  depicted  as  the 
Rebecca  in  "Ivanhoe." 

Among  her  intimate  friends  were  some  of 
the  leading  statesmen  and  writers,  Henry 


Clay  and  Sully  the  artist,  among  others. 
Her  career  has  been  appreciatively  written 
again  and  again,  and  but  a  few  years  ago  a 
sketch  of  her  appeared  from  the  pen  of 
General  Grant  Wilson. 


REBECCA  GRATZ 

This  noble  woman  from  the  start  took 
a  keen  interest  in  every  charitable  endeavor. 
Her  name  is  inseparably  associated  with 
every  benevolent  movement  in  Philadel- 
phia during  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth 
century. 

In  1819;  two  Jewish  women,  Mrs.  Aaron 
Levy  and  Miss  Hannah  Levy,  happened  to 
witness  a  case  of  distress  in  a  Jewish 
family,  and  at  once  resolved  to  call  upon 
other  ladies  for  aid.  Their  appeal  led  to 
the  formation  of  the  Female  Hebrew  Benev- 
olent Society  of  Philadelphia,  in  which  Miss 
Gratz  at  once  took  a  leading  part.  In  1838 
she  organized  the  first  Hebrew  Sunday 
School  in  America,  and  to  it  devoted  her 
best  efforts.  She  appealed  to  the  ladies 
of  other  cities  as  well,  and  thus  led  to  the 
establishment  of  similar  institutions  in  New 
York  and  Charleston. 

As  early  as  1850  Rebecca  Gratz  advocated 
a  society  for  taking  care  of  Jewish  orphans. 


Her  appeal  was  finally  answered  in  the 
organization  of  the  Jewish  Foster  Home  in 
1855.  She  was  also  active  in  the  Ladies' 
Hebrew  Sewing  Society  and  the  Fuel  So- 
ciety. 

Nor  were  her  labors  entirely  of  a  sec- 
tarian character.  As  early  as  1801  she  was 
secretary  of  the  Female  Association  for 
the  Relief  of  Women  and  Children,  and  in 
1815  one  of  the  founders  of  the  Philadel- 
phia Orphan  Asylum,  winning  from  the 
Gentile  world  the  highest  admiration  and 
sincere  regard.  Her  death  occurred  in  1869, 
and  her  memory  well  deserves  to  be  kept 
fresh  by  the  Jewish  women  of  America  for 
all  time. 

With  Rebecca  Gratz  were  associated  three 
other  women  who  deserve  to  be  mentioned. 
All  of  them  were  women  of  refinement  and 
social  standing,  thoroughly  American  by 
ancestry  and  intensely  devoted  to  their  race 
and  faith.  As  Leroy-Beaulieu  has  well  put 
it,  it  is  only  those  Jews  who  do  stand  for 
their  race  and  faith,  who  gain  the  respect 
and  friendship  of  the  Christian  world. 

The  ladies  to  whom  I  refer  were  Mrs. 
Anna  Allen,  Miss  Louisa  B.  Hart  and  Miss 
Ellen  Phillips.  They  were  among  the  found- 
ers of  the  Hebrew  Sunday  School  and  the 
Jewish  Foster  Home,  and,  like  Miss  Gratz, 
took  a  warm  interest  in  all  charitable  enter-, 
prises.  Miss  Hart  was  born  in  1803  at 
Easton,  Pennsylvania,  and  to  her  belongs 
the  credit  of  founding  the  Ladies'  Hebrew 
Sewing  Society.  Miss  Phillips  was  the 
granddaughter  of  Jonas  Phillips,  a  Revolu- 
tionary soldier,  and  at  her  death  in  1891 
bequeathed  over  $100,000  to  the  charities  in 
which  she  was  interested. 

Mention  should  also  be  made  of  Mrs. 
Matilda  Cohen  (1820-88),  a  member  of  the 
Woman's  Centennial  Commission .  in  1876, 
and  Mrs.  Rebecca  C.  I.  Hart  (also  of  Revo- 
lutionary ancestry)  who,  for  thirty  years, 
was  president  of  the  Hebrew  Benevolent 
Society. 

Did  space  permit,  extended  notice  should 
also  be  given  to  the  names  of  Mrs.  Flor- 
ance,  Miss  Pesoa,  Mrs.  Binswanger  of  Phil- 
adelphia, of  the  Moises  and  Miss  Lopez  of 


Charleston,  Mrs.  Priscilla  Joachimsen  of 
New  York,  the  founder  of  the  Hebrew  Shel- 
tering Guardian  Society;  Mrs.  Simon  Borg, 
the  late  Mrs.  Isidor  Straus,  and  many 
others. 

Within  the  past  thirty  years,  Jewish 
women  have  done  wonderful  work  in  the 
various  fields  of  charitable  endeavor 
throughout  the  Union.  The  societies  or- 
ganized by  them  are  far  too  great  in  num- 
ber, even  to  be  enumerated  within  the  scope 
of  this  paper;  much  less  is  it  possible  to 
give  the  names  of  the  noble  women  who 
have  labored  so  diligently  in  behalf  of  those 
institutions.  Many  of  them  are  fortunately 
still  with  us,  and  we  hope  will  continue  to 
labor  in  their  noble  work  for  many  years 
to  come. 

In  law  and  in  medicine,  some  of  the 
earliest  to  break  down  the  prejudice  against 
women  in  the  professions,  were  Jewish 
women.  On  the  stage,  the  names  of  Pearl 
Eytinge  and  her  sister  Rose,  who  appeared 
with  Booth,  must  occur  to  all,  and  there  has 
been  a  fair  line  of  Jewish  actresses  since 
Miss  Solomon  appeared  in  New  York  over  a 
century  ago.  In  this  connection,  one  need 
only  mention  such  names  as  Bertha  Kalisch, 
Clara  Lipman,  Alia  Nazimova  and  Mary 
Mannering. 

On  the  operatic  stage  the  names  of  Rita 
Fornia,  Madame  Morena,  Madame  Donalda, 
Madame  Olitzka,  Alda  and  Alma  Gluck  are 
certainly  familiar  to  all.  Many  names  simi- 
larly prominent,  can  be  mentioned  in  con- 
nection with  the  concert  stage.  In  art,  we 
can  point  to  Miss  Katherine  Cohen,  the 
gifted  pupil  of  St.  Gaudens,  who  exhibited 
her  sculptures  at  the  Paris  Salon.  In  the 
realm  of  education  some  of  the  best  pri- 
vate schools  during  the  first  half  of  the 
nineteenth  century  were  conducted  by  Jew- 
ish women,  like  Miss  Harby  and  Miss 
Moise.  Since  the  establishment  of  the  pub- 
lic school  system,  hundreds  of  Jewish 
women  have  won  the  admiration  of  the 
communities  throughout  the  country  for 
their  work  as  teachers,  while  in  New  York 
the  first  female  assistant  superintendent  ap- 
pointed by  the  Board  of  Education  was  the 


late  Julia  Richman,  known  not  only  as  an 
educator,  but  as  a  devoted  worker  in  every 
department  for  the  betterment  of  the  Jew- 
ish community. 

Several  Jewish  women  today  hold  pro- 
fessorships in  some  of  our  great  colleges, 
even  in  such  important  subjects  as  social 
economics  and  philosophy.  Quite  a  num- 
ber have  appeared  in  the  realm  of  let- 
ters. Not  to  mention  contemporaries,  we 
may  point  to  Rebekah  Hyneman  as  a  poet 
of  no  mean  ability,  and  to  Penina  Moise,  a 
gifted  writer  both  in  prose  and  verse,  the 
author  of  "Fancy's  Sketch  Book,"  and  a 
contributor  to  various  magazines.  Her 
hymns  have  for  many  years  been  chanted 
throughout  the  synagogues  of  the  South. 
Unfortunately  few  bright  rays  came  into  her 
life,  a  life  which  had  much  of  misery  and 
sorrow,  closing  with  years  of  total  blind- 
ness. Miss  Charlotte  Adams  has  written 
an  appreciative  sketch  of  her,  and  I  know 
of  no  sentiment  more  pathetic  than  the  last 
words  of  Penina  Moise.  "Lay  no  flowers 
on  my  grave.  They  are  for  those  who 
live  in  the  sun,  and  I  have  always  lived  in 
the  shadow." 

Numerous  women  have  become  well 
known  in  literature  since  the  day  of  Penina 
Moise,  and  I  am  sure  that  a  score  of  such 
names  must  readily  occur  to  all. 

Throughout  the  past  century,  the  cry  of 
distress  from  our  brethren  in  various  parts 
of  the  world  has  come  to  America  again 
and  again,  and  particularly  from  the  realm 
of  the  great  White  Czar,  where  pillage  and 
massacre  have  been  hideously  rampant  in 
recent  years.  Some  thirty-odd  years  ago, 
the  first  great  <:ry  of  this  character  came 
to  us  across  the  Atlantic,  when  over  a  hun- 
dred thousand  of  our  people  were  made 
homeless. 

There  lived  in  New  York  at  that  time  a 
noble  Jewish  woman,  not  of  kin  to  the  poor 
ignorant  Russian,  but  the  child  of  wealth 
and  of  culture,  a  friend  of  Emerson  and  of 
Channing.  Up  to  that  time  she  had  devoted 
her  best  efforts  to  her  art,  the  writing  of 
verse;  her  ideals  had  been  the  heroes  of 


the  Greek  and  the  German  mythology.  But 
when  the  cry  of  her  persecuted  people  came 
to  her,  she  did  not  shrink  from  claiming 
kinship  with  them  because  they  were  ig- 
norant and  ungainly.  Without  hesitation 
she  wielded  her  pen  in  their  defense  and 
in  defense  of  Judaism,  while  her  muse, 
which  until  then  had  sung  of  Admetus  and 
of  Tannhauser,  now  chanted  the  lay  of  the 
tragedy  of  her  people  or  the  hopeful  note 
in  "The  Banner  of  the  Jew." 

Nor  did  Emma  Lazarus  assist  by  her 
pen  alone.  She  went  herself  to  meet  her 
persecuted  brethren,  to  give  cheer  to  many 
a  despairing  heart.  And  the  great  Chris- 
tian world  admired  her  the  more  for  it. 
Her  career  is  so  familiar,  however,  that  I 
will  refrain  from  reviewing  it. 

We  today  are  living  in  days  far  more 
stirring  than  those  of  1880.  The  whole 
world  is  in  the  throes  of  a  great  cataclysm, 
the  martyrdom  of  our  brethren  in  Russia, 
in  Poland  and  in  the  Balkans  is  no  longer 
numbered  by  thousands  but  by  hundreds  of 
thousands,  and  when  the  great  struggle  will 
finally  cease,  who  can  tell  how  many  of 
our  unfortunate  co-religionists,  bereft  of 
kith  and  kin,  will  be  knocking  at  our  gates. 
It  is  for  the  Jewish  women  of  today  to 
manifest  the  zeal  which  animated  Emma 
Lazarus,  and  it  is  for  them  to  show  that 
they  are  worthy  successors  of  the  noble 
women  of  our  faith  in  the  past.  But  besides 
all  this,  they  must  also  show  the  world  that 
they  are  worthy  daughters  of  the  great  Re- 
public, giving  of  their  very  best  to  the  cause 
of  our  beloved  country  in  these  days  of 
trial  and  tribulation.  The  story  of  the 
Jewish  woman  in  America  begins  with 
the  gloom  and  darkness  of  the  Inquisition 
in  Mexico  and  Peru,  but  that  has  long  since 
been  dispelled  by  the  glorious  principles 
upon  which  our  institutions  are  founded. 
It  is  now  for  the  Jewish  woman  of  today 
to  make  our  era  resplendent  with  the  char- 
ity and  self-sacrifice  by  which  she  can  al- 
leviate the  burden  of  the  distressed,  not 
only  in  our  midst  but  also  in  lands  less 
fortunate  than  our  own. 


LES 


